


Heroes' Journey

by Jain



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Time, M/M, POV Third Person, PTSD, Past Tense, Previously Remixed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:55:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve pictured himself joining Bucky in Europe, this wasn't exactly what he'd imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroes' Journey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elsajeni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/gifts).



Bucky refused to ride in either the tank or the truck they'd commandeered from the HYDRA base. (They maybe should've taken more vehicles, but they were trying to be at least somewhat inconspicuous. Also, they'd been a little pressed for time, considering that the base had been in the process of _exploding_ when they'd left.)

"C'mon, Bucky," Steve said now, leaning nearer to him in an attempt to deter eavesdroppers; he was uncomfortably aware of how close his voice sounded to pleading. Bucky wouldn't care--he'd seen Steve down and out in half a dozen ways--but Steve couldn't afford to lose the other men's trust in him. Not for another thirty-five miles. "There's plenty of room."

"Oh, yeah? Then why don't _you_ hop on?"

It was an obnoxiously Bucky-like question, because of course Steve _couldn't_ ride while others were walking--it wouldn't be fair to the men who were ten times more tired and worn out than he was: men who'd been starved and near-broken by HYDRA, men who'd just fought a desperate battle for freedom while watching friends and comrades die around them. But Steve couldn't say any of that without making it sound as though he thought he was better and, well, _nobler_ than Bucky was.

Still, that didn't mean he was entirely out of arguments. "I didn't get--" his mind stuttered on the word 'tortured,' but quickly substituted, "--injured. You did."

"You jumped through a wall of flames, Steve. I had to beat out the back of your jacket where you'd caught fire," Bucky said, more flatly than the words warranted.

"And I'm fine. Not a scratch on me," Steve said, grinning inappropriately despite the seriousness of their conversation.

"Well, there you go; not a scratch on me either, at least not anywhere vital. I can walk just fine, too, so what's say we stop this stupid argument and get out of here before the Nazis catch sight of us?"

A large part of Steve didn't want to stop; Bucky might be correct that he had no obvious serious physical injuries, but they'd done _something_ to him in that lab. The watery Austrian dawn only made clearer how pale and clammy his skin was, and how deep the shadows around his eyes.

But Bucky had a point. Sick and too damned stubborn to quit walking was still better than dead by enemy fire. And if they didn't get a move on, they'd soon _all_ have a bad case of the latter. Steve would just have to keep Bucky close by, ready to catch him the instant his pain and exhaustion caught up with him.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Steve demanded. He'd returned to the medical tent as soon as possible after his mandatory debriefing with Colonel Phillips, a pack of cards in one pocket and a Coca-Cola in the other (slipped to him by Dernier, who'd obviously figured out where he was headed), all set to be the best sickbed distraction Bucky'd ever had. The last thing he'd expected to find was Bucky sitting at the edge of his cot, fully dressed and in the process of hunting for his boots.

"What's it look like?" Bucky asked, voice muffled, as he reached under the cot. "I'm getting out of here."

"You just _got_ here."

"And the doc who checked me out said I was fine and ready for action, so now I'm leaving," Bucky said with a quick nod towards the white-coated man leaning over the next cot.

Steve's jaw firmed. "Ready for action," he said disbelievingly; as if he hadn't just watched Bucky push himself to the limits for three days straight. Steve had let him do it when he hadn't really had another choice, but they were safe now--relatively speaking--and he'd be _damned_ if Bucky didn't take the opportunity to rest and heal. He strode over to the doctor Bucky had indicated and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Yes?" the doctor said impatiently as he turned around, then his eyes widened when he saw who'd interrupted him.

"I was talking to Sergeant Barnes, and he said you'd cleared him for duty," Steve said.

"That's right."

"But... _why?_ "

The doctor frowned. "What do you mean? He's in better physical condition than almost any other man who'd been imprisoned at that base."

Steve just shook his head, because Bucky had been a _mess_ when he'd found him, and tramping through the rain and mud and sleeping rough afterwards couldn't have been much help. Only the thought of getting Bucky the help he needed the instant they got back to Allied territory had made those three days bearable, and Steve wasn't about to give up on that plan without a fight. "Doc, I'm not telling you how to do your job or anything, but I think maybe you missed something. I had to practically _carry_ him out of there."

Bucky shot him an annoyed look that Steve calmly ignored; Bucky's health was more important than his pride. The twin flash of annoyance in the doctor's eyes was quickly muted, probably because the doc had just reminded himself that Steve was kind of the reason Bucky and the rest of the 107th were here at all. Steve had never wanted to be anyone's hero, but he couldn't deny that it had its uses.

"I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you, Captain," the doc said, almost gently. "He might've been in a state of shock when you found him; that could account for his rapid recovery. Or maybe he'd been drugged with something that's since cleared his system. There's no way for me to tell at this point, and in any case, I can't keep him here when there are sicker men needing my time and attention."

Steve glanced around the crowded and bustling medical tent guiltily. The doc was too diplomatic to say it, but it wasn't just his time that Steve and Bucky were monopolizing, but _space_. There was a nurse with an armful of fresh bedding standing only a few feet away, obviously waiting for Bucky to leave so she could remake his cot for the next patient. Steve's eyes had passed over her without even noticing before, too intent on Bucky to consider the needs of the other men.

"Sorry, Doc," he said, trying his best not to blush. "You're right. I'll get him out of your hair. It's just...he looked so badly off, is all."

Bucky had stood up by this point, and the nurse had begun changing his cot with brisk efficiency. He was still glowering at Steve, but at least he was silent--probably recognizing that the quickest way to get what he wanted was to keep quiet and let the doctor finish kicking them out. Not that that would save Steve from getting an earful later, of course.

The doc gave Steve a tired yet sympathetic smile. "It wouldn't hurt for you to keep him under observation yourself, if you have the time. If he starts to decline, bring him back and we'll see what we can do for him. There's simply nothing for us to fix right now."

"I can do that," Steve promised. "Thanks, Doc."

"Thank _you_ , Captain." The doc shook a suddenly surprised-looking Bucky's hand. "And good luck to you, Sergeant. Welcome back." Then he returned Steve's salute and dove back into the fray.

"What the hell was that?" Bucky demanded, his voice a strange combination of furious and confused.

"What was what?" Steve asked innocently. He put one hand on Bucky's back to guide him out of the tent, only to drop it quickly when Bucky glared at him.

Bucky shouldered his way under the raised tent flap and took off towards the barracks. "Don't even try that, pal. I've known you for almost twenty years. I can tell when you're not as wide-eyed and clueless as you're pretending to be."

Steve gave him an apologetic shrug, but inside he was practically cheering. Bucky might not be completely recovered, but he looked and sounded more like himself right now than he had anytime in the past three days. "I'm sorry, Buck," he said, and he even half-meant it. "I know what it's like to be stuck in a hospital bed more than anyone, remember? I just didn't want you pushing yourself too soon."

The lingering annoyance on Bucky's face slowly faded. "Yeah, I guess you would know," he said. He gave Steve a meaningful glance up and down. "Not that anyone would guess you'd ever been sick a day in your life, with the way you look now."

Steve flushed. "Well, obviously the nuns were right: looks aren't everything."

"Good thing in your case," Bucky said, a thread of laughter in his voice, and Steve's heart clenched oddly. Bucky had never made fun of his looks before...because Bucky wasn't mean. But in a backwards way, that only proved how ugly Bucky must have thought him pre-serum. Steve could've given a lot not to know that.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Bucky said suddenly. Steve only shook his head because Bucky was _trying_ , forcing jokes despite the lingering shadows in his eyes and the occasional tremor in his hands that Steve couldn't help but notice with his newly enhanced vision.

"It's just good to be together again," he said, and he wasn't lying. Bucky and he had both been changed, and not all of those changes were for the better, but he couldn't completely regret anything that meant he had Bucky standing by his side once more.

"Right back atcha," Bucky said, something soft in his face and voice that made Steve's heart clench all over again. And then someone whistled piercingly nearby and seconds later a bunch of guys he remembered from the HYDRA base swarmed the two of them and hustled them into a nearby tent.

"Uh, here," Steve said, a little awkwardly, and handed the Coca-Cola back to Dernier. "He was putting his boots on when I arrived. I never even got the chance to give it to him."

Dernier smiled away the apology. "All the better." He turned to Bucky. "If you're well enough to be sent out to be shot at again, then you're well enough for a _real_ drink."

Bucky grinned in response, though there was a question in his eyes when he looked at Steve.

" _One_ drink. Doctor's orders," Steve lied blithely, and Bucky nodded his agreement, though he knew better than anyone that the doc hadn't said anything of the kind.

There was a sympathetic groan from the others, and then Morita said, "In that case, you'd better make a good choice." He pulled out an amber bottle, and Dernier a deeper mahogany one, and then there was a general flurry of activity that ended with a larger quantity and variety of alcohol being laid out than Steve had seen since before the war. Obviously, these men had great resources, both literally and figuratively. "What's your poison?" Morita asked.

"Uh, I'll have whatever Steve's having," Bucky said.

Steve almost thwapped him--would have if Bucky weren't so pale and skinny. These men were Bucky's friends, but they were practically strangers to Steve; they didn't need Bucky pushing Steve on them.

But everyone just nodded and looked to Steve as though that were a perfectly normal thing to say and, oh, right, temporary hero.

"How about that one?" he said and pointed to Dernier's bottle, since he felt a little bad about the whole Coca-Cola thing. That had been a really nice gesture, and Dernier deserved the credit for it.

"An excellent decision, if I do say so," Dernier said.

"Do you have any idea what you picked?" Bucky asked under his breath while Dernier filled three small bowl-shaped glasses.

"Not a clue," Steve admitted quietly. He accepted the glasses Dernier handed him and passed one to Bucky, and a moment later there was a ring of raised glasses in the tent and a chorus of "Cheers" and one "Santé."

Steve took a careful sip of his drink and felt his eyes widen.

"Holy shit," Bucky said. "Steve, feel free to pick my drinks for me any time."

"Armagnac," Dernier said with quiet satisfaction. "From a vineyard owned by a friend of the family in Bas-Armagnac, aged for fifteen years--"

"And still no match for a good whiskey," Dugan interrupted.

"Only if one ignores the taste," Dernier said sweetly.

"Whiskey's fine, but I have to agree that Dernier's armagnac is something else," Jones said, and Morita nodded.

Dugan raised an eyebrow at Falsworth, the last undeclared man, who shrugged. "Sorry, I'm a gin and tonic man myself," he said, and the betrayed look that Dugan gave him was enough to make everyone laugh.

It was drizzling outside, but the warm glow of lamplight and laughter inside the tent was almost the best thing Steve could imagine for Bucky. Still, Bucky had to be exhausted, even if he refused to show it, so when they'd finished savoring their armagnacs, Steve said, "Thanks for the drink, fellows, but we should be going. It's been a long day, and we've got dates with some mighty fine looking pillows soon."

"You're not the only ones," Jones said with an affectionate pat to his own pillow, which was maybe the flattest, saddest specimen Steve had ever seen. On the other hand, Jones _had_ a pillow, which put him ahead of a lot of other guys. "I'm honestly not sure how I'm still vertical at this point." There was a chorus of nods from the others.

"Do come again," Falsworth said, and Steve and Bucky smiled and did another round of thank yous before leaving.

"They gave me my own tent," Steve said, heading in that direction now. "I haven't had a chance to check it out yet."

"Your own tent, huh?" Bucky asked. His lips quirked up. "Rescue a few hundred guys from behind enemy lines, and they start acting like you're some big hero. I wish I'd 've known it was that easy to get ahead in this army."

"We haven't seen the tent yet," Steve reminded him. "It probably has a missing flap and a hole in the roof. This camp isn't exactly equipped for 380 extra people."

But the tent, when they reached it, was small but sturdy and perfectly serviceable. There was only one cot, with Steve's trunk shoved halfway beneath it, but there was a chair and a writing desk that someone--Peggy?--had left his sketchbook on.

Bucky looked Steve up and down appraisingly. "I'm pretty sure we ain't both gonna fit," he said. "Let me go scrounge up a cot somewhere, I'll be right--"

"Bucky," Steve said exasperatedly. "If I need a cot, I can find one myself. I probably won't need one, though. The treatment I had, it means I don't need to sleep as much."

"How much is not as much?" Bucky asked in a suspicious tone.

Steve shrugged. "Around two, two and a half hours a day? A nap tomorrow, and I'll be fine." He didn't mention that he _could_ sleep more if he wanted to, and usually did. He still wasn't sure how much of what he did was habit. His new body had very different limits, but it had felt strange testing them: almost like a betrayal of Dr. Erskine, who should've had the chance to be with him every step of the way. At least, that's how Steve had felt while doing the war bonds circuit. Now he was (maybe) a real soldier, and if so it was time to figure out what he could really do.

"Okay," Bucky said at last. "But if you get tired, I'm counting on you to not fall asleep sitting up in that chair. I don't care how strong you are, no one needs that kind of back pain."

"No problem," Steve said. He'd been digging around his traveling case all this time, and now he was able to toss a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste to Bucky.

"Thanks," Bucky said, not bothering to ask if the toothbrush was used. (It was.) He stood in the doorway of the tent to dampen the toothbrush in the rain, then scrubbed and spat diligently for the next several minutes. "I don't know how that wasn't the first thing I did when we got back," he said appreciatively afterwards. "I guess I forgot how good it feels to have clean teeth."

"It happens," Steve said as lightly as he could. He'd never had to forget any such thing; it hurt a little to think that Bucky had, while Steve had been taking it easy all this time.

"I don't suppose you have a pair of flannel pajamas, too," Bucky said, unlacing his boots.

"Actually..."

Bucky looked up in surprise. "What, really? Hand them over."

"They might be a little big on you," Steve said.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'd guessed that one already. My pride can take it, so long as I'm warm again."

Steve looked at him closely, surprised and a little concerned. Bucky wasn't shivering, other than that periodic unsettling tremble in his hands. He reached out to touch Bucky's forehead, then took Bucky's wrist in his hand to check the pulse; Bucky held still for this treatment after one small, quickly repressed flinch.

"Okay?" Bucky asked quietly, almost sympathetically, and Steve remembered all of the times Bucky had done the same to him when _he'd_ been sick. He wondered now how scared Bucky had been for him back then.

"Yeah," he said, shoving away a twinge of unnecessary embarrassment. He found the pajamas for Bucky, then turned away to give him privacy, busying himself with sharpening a pencil and setting up his sketchbook.

Bucky let out a soft snort of laughter, and Steve glanced up to find him looking like a teenaged boy wearing his father's suit...or pajamas, in this case. Bucky wasn't a small man, but the pajamas still looked ridiculous on him, with loose shoulders and baggy, too long legs. There was no reason for the sight to tug at Steve's gut in a painfully good way, so he made himself smile in response. "Glad you like them," he said.

Bucky settled himself on the cot and pulled the blankets up with a long, contented sigh. "Buddy, you have no idea," he said, which seemed to be all he had left in him before he fell deeply asleep.

Steve watched him for long, quiet minutes, then pulled his sketchbook closer. Bucky had never minded posing for Steve before; it couldn't be too much of an imposition to capture this moment now: Bucky safe and close and peaceful in Steve's bed.

Unfortunately, the 'peaceful' part didn't last nearly long enough. Steve's sketch was no more than half-done when Bucky let out a whimper, his face contorting in distress. Steve shoved himself to his feet, but then hesitated, uncertain whether he should wake Bucky from what might be no more than a brief, run-of-the-mill nightmare. As he watched, though, Bucky began to thrash about, a fearful look spreading across his face, and Steve stopped dithering.

"Hey, Bucky," he said, reaching out to shake Bucky's shoulder gently.

Only his heightened reflexes saved him from a punch to the nose; Steve jerked back almost before he saw Bucky's fist swing at him.

"Bucky! It's just me! Calm down," he said insistently, but Bucky didn't seem to hear him. Despite his good aim a moment earlier, it looked as though he were still asleep.

Steve could restrain him--hold his hands down, or even immobilize him more completely than that--but he was worried about injuring him accidentally. And then Bucky's eyes flew open and he _screamed_ , and Steve's heart jumped in his chest.

"Holy mother of God," he swore, uncharacteristically, before he noticed that, if anything, Bucky looked even worse awake than he had while in the grip of his nightmare. He was breathing heavily, his skin white and sweaty, and his eyes were wide and terrified. "You're okay!" Steve said quickly. "It was just a nightmare. You're fine." He reached a comforting hand out to Bucky, who shied away from it.

"James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant, 32557314," Bucky muttered.

Steve let his hand drop, defeated.

"James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant, 32557314. James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant, 32557314..."

It took eleven agonizing repetitions of the phrase before recognition flickered in Bucky's eyes and he fell silent.

"Bucky?" Steve whispered.

"Yeah. Sorry," Bucky said roughly. His hands were shaking; he gave them a disgusted look before yanking his blankets almost over his head and closing his eyes. "Good night," he said in a voice that practically dared Steve to comment.

Steve looked down at him--still warm and safe, but obviously about as far from peaceful as a man could get--and swallowed hard. "Good night."

* * *

After that first night, Bucky found his own cot in a communal tent in the barracks. It only made sense. Since he wasn't ill, Bucky had no choice but to go back to his regular routine with the other soldiers. But Steve missed him, and not just because he was worried about how Bucky was recovering from his recent experience.

Steve still didn't have a place in the army base. He wasn't a performing monkey anymore--not in anyone's eyes, including his own--but that didn't mean that anyone knew what he _was_.

He'd always known who he was when Bucky was around, though: Steve Rogers, the guy who was too stupid to know when to back down from a fight. It was harder to keep that in mind when Bucky spent half his time drilling and the other half being grilled by Stark over and over, getting asked the same questions in six different ways in Stark's determined attempt to crack as many of the HYDRA scientists' medical and technological mysteries as he could. And even when he wasn't occupied, it seemed that Bucky was harder to track down than he should be.

But then the army--no doubt encouraged by Colonel Phillips--decided that the men of the 107th were in serious need of recuperation, and they, plus Steve, were all sent to London for leave.

London was incredible, even though Falsworth and the other Brits kept lamenting how ravaged it was by the war. If this was their idea of "ravaged," then Steve was definitely going to have to return for a visit sometime when the war was over. The work Steve was doing with military intelligence was just as incredible, and the offer for Steve to create his own specialized unit was pretty much unbelievable.

And Peggy was incredible and bewildering by turns, and so was Bucky.

"Hey, Steve," Bucky said, two minutes after he'd agreed to follow Steve anywhere he led and one minute after he'd made a play for Peggy and insulted Steve's pre-serum self in fast succession.

"Yeah?"

"There's something I've gotta show you."

"Okay," Steve said, a little warily; Bucky's tone of voice suggested that whatever this 'something' was, he probably wouldn't like it.

The silence had just started to get painful when Bucky sighed and shoved his hand into his pocket, pulling out a pillbox. He flipped the cap open to reveal a collection of small white pills. "Stark gave them to me, when I told him about the nightmares. Benzo--something or other. They're experimental, but I figure he's the genius of the century, right? He's not gonna give me something that'll kill me.

"And they've been working great, except there's just one problem. I'm no good to you as long as I'm on them. Stark rattled off a list of possible side effects as long as my arm, and I didn't get any but one of them, but the one I _did_ get is, uh, lack of muscle coordination. It's not so bad that I can't manage, but I'm not in any shape to be taking on Nazis as long as I'm on the pills. But as soon as I go off them, the nightmares start up again; I've tried a couple of times already."

There was a pause in which Steve's brain worked in three directions at once: Did Stark have a better alternative to Bucky's pills? Had Bucky even told him about his side effects yet? -- Was there any way to prevent the nightmares other than medication? Would hypnosis work? Or maybe something as simple as waking Bucky up before the nightmares started each night? -- How could the nightmares be managed if they couldn't be eliminated? The worst part from a tactical standpoint was how conspicuous they were. Would Bucky be able to sleep safely and relatively comfortably while wearing a gag, and perhaps a light restraint: something he could undo himself while awake but that could prevent him from thrashing around while asleep?

"You missed your cue, Steve," Bucky said, intruding on his thoughts. "This is the point where you say, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' and take back your earlier invitation. And then by all rights you kick me down to medical, and they ship me back home."

"Is that what you want?" Steve asked, brought up short. Bucky had enough courage for ten men and always had...but he'd also gone through a hell of a lot. Steve wasn't about to look down on him if Bucky decided that he'd had enough.

"There's a war going on, Steve, in case you hadn't noticed. What I _want_ isn't exactly a pressing concern."

"It is to me," Steve said.

Bucky sighed. "Fine. Then I want to stay. You're my best friend, not to mention the best chance we've got at winning this war, and I want to be part of that. But I'm not about to screw things up for you and everybody else by--"

"Hang on!" Steve said. "I get it. But I'm pretty sure you haven't considered all the options yet. Have you talked to Stark about your side effects? Or if medication's a dead end, we could try hypnosis or mechanical restraints or...what?" Because Bucky was staring at him disbelievingly.

"Nothing. Just...I didn't want to tell you because I was pretty sure I knew how this conversation was gonna go, and it turns out I was wrong about...basically everything."

"Any scenario you can picture, if it doesn't have me in your corner, then it's wrong," Steve told him.

"Yeah," Bucky said with a grin. "I'm starting to get that impression."

* * *

"Nice shooting today," Dugan said. "How many times is it that your rifle's saved Cap's life now? Twenty? Twenty-five?"

"If you can count the number, I'm not doing my job right," Bucky said as he snapped his stripped and cleaned rifle back together.

"What, you mean you don't have a running tally going?" Morita asked.

"I didn't say _I_ couldn't count it, just that Dugan can't. The number's a little bit too high for him," Bucky said, and everyone laughed at Dugan's indignant, "Hey!"

"Besides," he added, "I'm pretty sure Jones has my total beat all to hell."

"Communications is a good specialty for that," Jones agreed. "Though, you know, if we start comparing totals, then sooner or later Cap's going to bring up how many times he's saved _our_ collective asses, and we're all gonna feel pretty small."

Steve smiled along with the others' laughter, even though part of him wanted to protest that he wasn't able to do any of that on his own; it was the team that gave him strength, more than the other way around. But they knew how he felt already. It wouldn't be such a good joke, otherwise.

Bucky finished examining his rifle, then stashed it in his pack and lay down on his bedroll. "Okay, bedtime for me," he said. "If you're still talking, go do it somewhere else."

Jones and Falsworth, the two night owls of the group, took his advice, while everyone else settled themselves on their own bedrolls.

Steve waited five minutes for propriety and then scooted closer to Bucky so that he could spread his own blankets over both of them and wrap an arm around Bucky's waist. Plenty of guys shared beds for warmth and comfort when they were roughing it on missions; that wasn't the problem. But Steve was commander of their unit, and that made things a little messier.

Still, the Commandos were good at turning a blind eye, and it wasn't as though Bucky was going to start demanding special treatment just because he and Steve were best friends.

Steve lay awake for close to an hour and a half, going over their most recent mission in his head and planning new strategies. He heard Jones and Falsworth creep back to their own bedrolls about an hour after everyone else had gone to sleep, and then silence...or at least the closest thing to silence you could get when Dugan and Morita were snoring in concert.

It wasn't too long after that that he felt Bucky's heartbeat and breathing kick up a notch, the way they always did when Bucky was about to start dreaming. Before that could happen, Steve shook him carefully.

"I'm up," Bucky whispered immediately.

"Prove it. What's the square root of 329 minus 73?"

"Is it twelve to the order of shut the hell up?" Bucky asked. Steve could hear the grin in his voice.

"You know, I think it might be," he said.

"Perfect," Bucky said. He gave Steve's arm a quick pat. "Good night."

"Good night."

They'd found that Bucky's nightmares only ever came at the beginning of the night, for whatever reason, so Steve waited no longer than it took for Bucky to drop off again before he let himself fall asleep, as well.

* * *

In hindsight, it seemed almost inevitable when Steve's own sleep was interrupted one night by a half-awake Bucky rubbing his dick against his thigh. They'd shared a bed a hundred times or more without anything happening, but most of those times had been when dames were easier to come by (for Bucky, at least) and when the world had seemed a lot more open and full of possibility than it did right now, lying curled up together in an abandoned barn outside Koszalin. Steve could admit that he'd been half in love with Bucky for as long as he'd known him, but somehow that had mattered less when they'd both been swept up in the bustle of normal, everyday life.

Now, though, their world had narrowed to the mission and to each other, with the rest of the Howling Commandos a close afterthought. _Now_ it seemed not only natural but necessary that Bucky should come to Steve when he needed something, and vice versa.

Steve shifted, turning towards Bucky, and Bucky sucked in a quick breath and froze. "Steve?" he whispered, sounding entirely awake again.

"Yeah," Steve said and placed a hand on Bucky's cheek, in both reassurance and encouragement.

Bucky's eyes were wide in the dim moonlight, searching Steve's face desperately. Apparently, he found what he was looking for, because the next moment he let his head drop onto Steve's chest while his long, clever fingers unbuttoned first Steve's pants and then his own. "Hand," he whispered, a second before he pulled Steve's hand over to wrap around his dick, and then Bucky's hand was on _Steve_ and Steve had to bite his lip to keep from crying out loud enough to wake not only the other Commandos, but any Nazis in a two-mile radius.

Fortunately, the serum had really enhanced his ability to do several things at once, because the tight, perfect strokes of Bucky's hand working his dick were equally compelling as the impossibly soft yet firm flesh in Steve's grasp, and he had no problem paying close attention to _both_...and to Bucky's barely perceptible gasps and shivers, besides.

At one point, he opened his eyes and noticed the gleam of Dernier's eyes looking back at him. Steve nearly choked on his next breath, but all Dernier did was give him a quick smile and wink before pointedly turning his face away--though he'd obviously been watching _before_ , Steve realized with more than a hint of discomfort. Still, interest in what amounted to a free show was a fair sight better than anger or disgust...

And then Bucky was shaking through a silent orgasm in Steve's arms, though his hand managed to keep up its short, steady strokes, and Steve didn't need much more persuasion than that to focus on his own rising pleasure rather than on whatever Dernier was thinking while Steve pressed his lips tightly around a moan and came in Bucky's warm, generous hand.

* * *

Steve was worried that things might be awkward the next day. None of the Commandos said anything, though--even if Morita _did_ grin a suspicious amount that morning--and Bucky acted almost the same as he ever did. Though maybe he was smiling a bit more, too, and the way he bumped Steve's shoulder companionably with his several times throughout the day was both new and very welcome. Not everything was fixed yet, but they were maybe getting there.

In the meantime, Steve was more than willing to give Bucky everything he needed, for as long as he needed it. And just maybe, when the war was over, Steve might find the courage to really sit Bucky down for a talk, and the two of them could discover what kind of future they could have together.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tin Soldier](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4180872) by [l_cloudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy)




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